Weatherford's Medicaid math faces Truth-O-Meter

Florida House Speaker Will Weatherford has been a vocal opponent of President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act. He’s no fan of the law’s proposed Medicaid expansion, especially.

During an interview with the Tampa Bay Times editorial board on Feb. 27, Weatherford played down the need for Medicaid expansion, which the Legislature rejected last year.

He said many Floridians who might have enrolled under an expanded Medicaid system can now buy affordable private insurance from the federal website HealthCare.gov.

"If you live above the 100 percent of the poverty rate today, which is about 400,000 of the 800,000 who would qualify for Medicaid expansion, half of the people who qualify for Medicaid expansion today can buy a health care plan for $30 a month on the exchange," he said.

Weatherford added that he thought people in that income range "should be able to afford $30 a month and have some skin in the game."

We wondered if half of the people who would have been eligible under a potential Medicaid expansion could get a private insurance plan for $30 a month.

We ran the numbers and found that Weatherford had a point that many people who would have been eligible for Medicaid can buy plans from healthcare.gov for $30 a month. But it’s not half of them, it’s a good bit less. Showing you why is going to involve a deep dive into how the health care law works. Read the full story from PolitiFact.